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Book Review Essay Reading the Seattle Manifesto: in Search of a Theory

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Book Review Essay Reading the Seattle Manifesto: in Search of a Theory BOOK REVIEW ESSAY READING THE SEATTLE MANIFESTO: IN SEARCH OF A THEORY Larry Lee* Lori Wallach & Michelle Sforza, Whose Trade Organization? Corporate Globalization and the Erosion of Democracy: An Assess- ment of the World Trade Organization. Washington, D.C.: Public Cit- izen (1999). Pp. xii, 229, index. $15. INTRODUCTION The protests at the 1999 World Trade Organization Ministerial Round have been called the pinnacle of power for non-governmental organizations (NGOs). 1 A wide spectrum of NGOs, representing public interest groups from around the world, converged on Seattle. Lori Wallach, director of Global Trade Watch (a division of Ralph Nader's Public Citizen), masterminded the protests, personally organizing the NGO coalition. Just before the Seattle protests in October 1999, Wallach and Public Citizen staffer Michelle Sforza 2 published and distributed Whose Trade Organization?: Corporate Globalizationand the Erosion of Democracy (WTO?). * Law Clerk, The Honorable Henry H. Kennedy, Jr., U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia; J.D., New York University School of Law, 2003. My deepest grati- tude to Professor Joseph Weiler for his support and enthusiasm in guiding this work, pro- duced for the Spring 2002 Jean Monnet Seminar on International Economic Law and Justice at NYU. My thanks to the staff of the New York University Law Review, and special thanks to Amelie Trahant, Steve Yuhan, and David John Ball for their editing and Vic Goldfeld and Ming Hsu Chen for helpful conversations. My love to Camila Viegas, who made me watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets immediately after two sleep- less nights of finishing this piece-Cami, te amo. I See, e.g., Debora Spar & James Dail, Of Measurement and Mission: Accounting for Performance in Non-Governmental Organizations, 3 Chi. J.Int'l L. 171, 172 (2002) ("In what may be seen as a watershed of non-governmental activity, the 1999 world trade talks in Seattle were effectively paralyzed by NGO protests, causing great embarrassment (and in some cases, significant financial loss) to the firms and states involved."). 2 Throughout this review, I refer to "the authors" but often to Wallach alone as the author of Whose Trade Organization? (WTO?). This is intentional, as Wallach is the prime author of most Public Citizen work on international trade law and because she is also the key activist. 2305 Imaged with the Permission of N.Y.U. School of Law NEW YORK UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 78:2305 The book-a wide-ranging criticism of the World Trade Organization (WTO) from its inception to 1999-is essential reading for students of the WTO and trade law because of who wrote it and who reads it. First, who wrote it: WTO? provides insights into the thoughts of Wallach and Public Citizen, which represents NGOs with a very real power to stymie the WTO. Second, who reads it: WTO? is for mass consumption and has succeeded in reaching a large audi- ence. 3 As such, it is not an academic piece meant to engage lawyers in a lively intellectual debate. The book is propaganda, meant to move people to act. To criticize it, as a WTO official once criticized Wallach, for blending "legitimate concerns, deliberate or partly delib- erate misinformation, and populist rhetoric"'4 is accurate but beside the point. As a result, one should read WTO? as one might read the Communist Manifesto,5 as opposed to a more subtle, self-consciously academic work like Das Kapital6 (to stay with the Marxist analogy). Different questions are appropriate for works like this. Who is the book's intended audience, and what are they supposed to believe? What arguments are meant to appeal to the audience's preconcep- tions? What do the authors really believe? Do they subscribe fully to their own rhetoric? What was their intellectual inspiration for the book? When complications arise that seem to refute their assertions, how do they cope with them? At first blush, the book seems disorganized, even incoherent. The authors attack everything the WTO has done. This, I argue, is intentional. The authors set out for themselves the difficult task of attracting the widest support possible. This is an attempt to gain dem- ocratic legitimacy, which some NGOs feel is essential to have because their major criticism of the WTO is precisely that it lacks such legitimacy. 3 Perhaps because it is easy reading for a trade law book, WTO? has been relatively popular-not Harry Potter popular, but WTO? fares well compared to other books on the World Trade Organization (WTO). Search for "WTO" on Amazon.com (see http:// www.amazon.com (searched 10/31/02)) and two of the top ten bestsellers in the WTO cate- gory are WTO? (seventh place) and a shorter, pamphlet version of the same book called The WTO: Five Years of Reasons to Resist Corporate Globalization (fourth place). First place went to George Soros, George Soros on Globalization (2002); second to Nicholas R. Lardy, Integrating China into the World Economy (2002); third to Supachai Panichpakdi & Mark L. Clifford, China and the WTO: Changing China, Changing World Trade (2002). Combine WTO?'s sales with its shorter cousin's, and you likely have the bestselling WTO book online. 4 Moises Naim, Lori's War: The FP Interview, Foreign Pol'y, Spring 2000, at 28, 30 [hereinafter Naim, Wallach Interview]. 5 Karl Marx et al., The Communist Manifesto (Oxford Univ. Press 1998) (1848). 6 Karl Marx, Das Kapital (Regnery Publishing 1999) (1867). Imaged with the Permission of N.Y.U. School of Law December 20031 READING THE SEATTLE MANIFESTO The problem with this strategy, to paraphrase W.C. Fields, is that you cannot please all of the people all of the time. There is no unitary public interest, contrary to what the authors imply. Many groups feel wronged by the WTO, but in many cases, this is the only common ground. Their common procedural interest in being heard aside, their substantive interests conflict. In the end, by reaching out to everyone, all the authors are able to muster is a common hatred for the WTO. This attempt to reach out to a wide audience explains, but does not necessarily excuse, Wallach's characterization of WTO cases, panels, et cetera. Like the Communist Manifesto, WTO? presents a single, pow- erful intuition as an all-encompassing, Manichaean theory: Corporate interests have captured the WTO, which, in turn, consistently rules against the wider public interest. In the authors' view, all problems originate from this basic conflict. But this approach leads to the book's major flaws. The book mischaracterizes WTO players and doctrines when the realities do not comport with their "corporate interests = democratic deficit" theory. Some of this rhetoric may be appropriate and even necessary. A political book has a different function than an academic analysis. But in places, the rhetoric goes overboard and compromises the credibility of the book. In addition, WTO? reflects a somewhat parochial, American view of the world and betrays the limits of the authors' imaginations. It does not grapple seriously with the priorities or values of Southern7 NGOs and does not acknowledge the potential conflicts between Northern and Southern NGOs (e.g., that developing states may not be ready to incorporate the environmental and health standards of devel- oped countries). Making some attempt to resolve these conflicts would help Public Citizen form more powerful coalitions. Finally, the authors misconceive their project. They do not con- sider ways in which the WTO might help constrain the corporate powers that they oppose. The authors also do not see that it is not "democratic accountability" they are after per se, but rather a more general theory of fairness that has already been developed in some scholarly works. A recasting of their project can only help the authors in their advocacy. This review analyzes WTO? in three parts. 8 Part I provides a his- tory of Public Citizen and an overview of the book. Part II analyzes 7 This review refers to developed countries as "Northern" and those from developing countries as "Southern." 8 In Parts I and II, this review also deals with another book that Wallach coauthored. See Pub. Citizen & Friends of the Earth, NAFTA Chapter 11 Investor-to-State Cases: Imaged with the Permission of N.Y.U. School of Law NEW YORK UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 78:2305 the book's mischaracterizations of cases and events. Part III criticizes the authors' apparent lack of curiosity regarding academic debates on developing countries and the WTO, the use of the WTO to constrain corporate power, and theories of legitimacy versus theories of democracy. This review criticizes WTO? on its own terms. I take seriously the values that the authors espouse and have no desire to write an apology for the status quo and corporate interests or to debunk the importance of the environment or human rights. Rather, I argue that the approach the authors take in WTO? may undermine their own project. I AN ECLECTIC BOOK FOR AN ECLECTIC COALITION One factor that helps explain the way the book is written is the background of the authors and the group they run. Public Citizen is a domestic public interest organization that developed an international NGO branch, Global Trade Watch (GTW). One could even argue that GTW and the WTO have similar problems: As new institutions, both retained their previous, and possibly no longer relevant, worldviews. If the WTO is a legal body that still thinks like a diplo- matic one, GTW is an international NGO that still thinks like a domestic public interest group. A. History of Public Citizen and Global Trade Watch Public Citizen seems an unlikely candidate to lead a global coali- tion of NGOs opposed to the expansion of the WTO.
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